Australasian Telehealth Society national strategy white paper (AUS)

The Australasian Telehealth Society has issued a five-year (2013-2018) white paper that outlines how Australia can transition toward a National Telehealth Strategy which would improve the delivery of health care. Australia, not unlike the US but with less population, has extremes of population gathered in dense urban and regional areas, then scattered in distant, sparsely populated rural or remote areas. The idea is to improve access and quality, with essential elements being a national broadband strategy and current healthcare resources. Importantly, the Society’s defines ‘telehealth’ at the outset broadly as “enabling health care services and related processes delivered over distance, using information and communication technologies” including telecare, telehealth and telemedicine. The paper was initiated during the roundtable discussion session at their Global Telehealth 2012 Conference held in Sydney on 26-28 November 2012. Authored by Colin Carati and reader George Margelis (hat tip once again). Society link and download PDF

Our definitions

Telehealth and Telecare Aware posts pointers to a broad range of news items. Authors of those items often use terms 'telecare' and telehealth' in inventive and idiosyncratic ways. Telecare Aware's editors can generally live with that variation. However, when we use these terms we usually mean:

• Telecare: from simple personal alarms (AKA pendant/panic/medical/social alarms, PERS, and so on) through to smart homes that focus on alerts for risk including, for example: falls; smoke; changes in daily activity patterns and 'wandering'. Telecare may also be used to confirm that someone is safe and to prompt them to take medication. The alert generates an appropriate response to the situation allowing someone to live more independently and confidently in their own home for longer.

• Telehealth: as in remote vital signs monitoring. Vital signs of patients with long term conditions are measured daily by devices at home and the data sent to a monitoring centre for response by a nurse or doctor if they fall outside predetermined norms. Telehealth has been shown to replace routine trips for check-ups; to speed interventions when health deteriorates, and to reduce stress by educating patients about their condition.

Telecare Aware's editors concentrate on what we perceive to be significant events and technological and other developments in telecare and telehealth. We make no apology for being independent and opinionated or for trying to be interesting rather than comprehensive.